Undergraduate Course Descriptions
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
1 UNDERGRADUATE COURSE DESCRIPTIONS AFRICAN AND BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES ABD 100 INTRODUCTION TO AFRICAN AND THE BLACK DIASPORA STUDIES The objective of the course is two-fold: first, to introduce students to African and Black Diaspora Studies as a scholarly field rooted in a tripartite intellectual tradition (Africa, Pan-African, and African American Studies) and second, to ground the history of the field in the investigation of problems raised in African and Black diasporic public spheres. The course will show how the field formulates and investigates questions designed to critique existing knowledges and to expand knowledges in the interests of Black peoples. ABD 200 AFRICA: PEOPLES, CULTURES, IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS This is an introductory survey course on African politics. The organizing topic and focus of the course will be Africa's experience with democratic governance, especially its continuing vigor and popular appeal on the continent despite its elusive character. Our goal in this course is to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of Africa: its rich political tradition, incredible diversity, its contradictions, achievements and failings. The objective is to be able to ask better questions, and develop some insights about why democracy, self-sustaining economic growth, equity and social justice have been so difficult to accomplish and sustain in the region. ABD 206 AFRO-CARIBBEAN AND AFRO-LATIN AMERICA: PEOPLES, CULTURES, IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS This course has two objectives. First, to introduce the student to the study of peoples of African descent in the Caribbean and Latin American through lenses of history, politics, and culture. Second, to introduce students to the methods and knowledges of the field of Latin America Studies to enable students to pursue further research. ABD 208 AFRICAN AMERICA: PEOPLES, CULTURES, IDEAS AND MOVEMENTS The objective of the course is to introduce the student to the history of the field of African American Studies. The course will be organized around two inquiries central to the field. First, the study the nature and quality of the connections between Africans in the diaspora, particularly in the United States, with the cultures and histories of Africans on the continent. Second, to study the ways in African Americans have developed an specific consciousness of being of African descent. These two inquiries will be examined in their cultural, economic, geographical, historical, philosophical and political contexts. This course will also place the field of African American studies within the context o its formation. Although the pioneering programs and departments were incorporated into college and university curriculums in the late 1960's and early 1970's 2 ABD 210 AFRICA ON FILM Africa is a continent with a rich and growing repertoire of film. This course explores this repertoire, focusing primarily on films made about Africa by filmmakers of African descent. This class will feature fiction and non-fiction films (full-length and shorts) by well-known filmmakers of African descent. In addition to screenings, students will read essays that illuminate the background necessary to intelligently interpret and critique film. Topics for discussion include the funding, distribution, and presentation of African Films as well as modes of criticism appropriate to film made by Africans and the relation filmmaking to history. Film directors include Souleymane Cisse, Bassek ba Kobhio, Jean-Marie Teno, Djibril Dio Mambety, Mohamad Camara, and Ousmane Sembene. ABD 215 THE AFRICAN AMERICAN RELIGIOUS EXPERIENCE This course will examine the religious experience of African Americans and its African precursors through historical and literary resources, reflecting African Americans' distinctive past and interaction with other elements of American culture. ABD 241 RELIGIOUS DIMENSIONS OF THE AFRICAN DIASPORA This course explores the dynamics of African religions throughout the Diaspora and the Atlantic world. It will pay particular attention to the variety of historical experiences and sacred institiutions of those of African descent. Questions of the course include: how were these religions and their communities created?; how have they survived?; and how are African-based traditions perpetuated through ritual, song, dance, drumming, and healing practices? Specific attention will be given to one or more of the following: Yoruba religion and its New World offspring, Santeria, Voodoo and Candombli; Africanisms in American religion; gospel music; Islam; urban religions; and/or Vodun and Voodoo. ABD 245 RACE AND ETHNICITY IN LITERARY STUDIES This course examines various ways in which race is constructed and, concurrently, how race as a "fiction" operates in literary studies. Literature presents and explores the ways in which the world is viewed and experienced by individuals in a particular society or social group. Since literature provides unique insights into different historical and cultural movements, studying how race is understood and deployed (explicitly and implicitly) in a text provides a powerful way to examine the fluidity of race and to compare how it is understood in different parts of the Black diaspora. ABD 250 CARIBBEAN MUSIC AND IDENTITIES In the Caribbean, music is tied to national identity: Jamaican reggae, Puerto Rican bomba and plena, Haitian compass, Brazilian samba, Dominican merengue But how did a Cuban rhythm derived from the Kongo become thought of as a Spanish habanera? How did a related Kongo-derived rhythm popularized by Cuban sailors become the Argentine tango? By exploring genres of Caribbean music, we will learn about human and cultural migrations in the Caribbean, and the tremendous influence of music in national identity. Focus will be on African-derived forms in Cuba. 3 ABD 275 AFRICAN AMERICAN POPULAR CULTURE History, development, and social context of African American popular culture. Texts to be critiques come from music, television, fiction, games, humor, sport, and/or radio. ABD 303 THEMES IN AFRICAN DIASPORA Where is Africa? In Spain, Africa is said to "begin in the Pyrenees"; in Italy, to begin in Naples. Recent scholarship argues that Africa is not limited to geography, but is found in the traditions and identities of many Caribbean peoples. After reviewing models of how Africa has been conceived of by Europeans from antiquity to the present, we will examine how Africans and their descendants have resisted thesedefinitions, or used them, while struggling for self-determination. Topics include the cultural impact of Africans in Europe: ethnic identity of Africans in the Caribbean; organized resistance to American slavery; and Pan-Africanism. ABD 305 PAN-AFRICANISM The upper level course will interrogate the often ambivalent place of Africa in the imaginations, cultures and politics of people in the African diaspora. We will examine the contributions of African, African-American and Caribbean intellectuals, including W.E.B. DuBois, C.L.R. James and Walter Rodney, in the formation of diasporic movements and Pan-African thought. We will ask, to what degree was the ideology of Pan-Africanism and the iconography of Africa employed to mobilize masses of black people around local and domestic issues? How important has a consciousness of Africa been to the construction of cultural identities in the diaspora, and how have class, gender, and race shaped or constrained those identities? Our goal is to develop furthur insights into the ways in which people of the African diaspora have continually reinvented and imagined the home of their ancestors, in turn reinventing and imaging themselves. ABD 345 THE LITERATURE OF IDENTITY Cross-Cultural Study of self-discovery and identity as manifested in the literatures of self-awareness and self-definition. Authors to be studied include: Michael Anthony, Frantz Fanon, Jamaica Kincaid, george Lamming, V. S. Naipaul, and Jane Rhys. ABD 380 TOPICS IN AMERICAN STUDIES Representative texts, artifacts, cultural values in African American historical and contemporary perspective. ACCOUNTANCY ACC 101 INTRODUCTION TO ACCOUNTING I (PREREQS.: MAT 130/SOPH STNDG/ASSESSMENT TEST) Introduction to Accounting I, provides an introduction to financial accounting as the means of recording, storing and summarizing economic events of the business enterprise to meet external reporting needs. Emphasis is placed on the preparation and analysis of financial statements and other financial reports to the public based on the accounting 4 equation, accrual accounting concepts, and data gathering techniques. Topics include corporate accounting for current and longterm assets and current liabilities, and the corporate income statement. PREREQUISITE(S): MAT 130 or equivalent and adequate performance on the University Assessment tests in reading, writing, and mathematics. Incoming freshmen, unless participating in the Eldred C. Strobel Scholars Program, may not enroll in this course. Sophomore standing required. ACC 102 INTRODUCTION TO ACCOUNTING II (PREREQ.: ACC 101 & SOPH. STANDING) Introduction to Accounting II, a companion and sequel course to Accounting 101, continues to explore basic accounting fundamentals and concepts. The course provides an introduction to managerial accounting and internal reporting. Topics include financial accounting for long-term liabilities, the components of stockholders equity, the statement of cash flows, financial statement analysis, budgeting and variance analysis, job costing for the service sector and cost analysis for decision-making.